Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Welcome back to another episode of the Capes and Tights podcast right here on capesandites.com. We're back for another episode with an author, C. J. Lee, author of Mave Fly, which dropped in 2023, the summer of 2023, which is an unbelievable book. It's in our top ten or top 20, top 15, whatever we put out there for books of the year. It's an unbelievably weird, cool horror slasher book written by CJ. It is well and highly recommended. So please check it out. It's called Mave Fly. So we discuss mave Fly. We discuss our next book called American Rapture, which comes out October of 2024, as well as Star Trek books in general, the crazy world we live in, and so much more. But before you listen, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, blue Sky, rate, review, subscribe, all those things over on Spotify, Apple and all your major podcasting platforms. You can also check us out and follow us on YouTube as well. But this is episode with author CJ Lee talking about her book may fly, as well as her upcoming book, American Rapture. Enjoy, everyone.
Welcome to the podcast. CJ, how are you?
[00:01:11] Speaker B: I'm great, thanks. How you doing?
[00:01:13] Speaker A: I'm doing wonderful. As I mentioned, a little bit off air. I feel like I'm getting a cold. I have a two and a half year old, so it's like inevitable. But he just got over his cold like two weeks ago, and now I'm like, oh, my gosh, if he gets another one, I'm going to freak out. But hey, you know what? It's that time of year and I feel like everybody's getting sick anyway.
[00:01:30] Speaker B: Yeah, 100%. We're just surviving. We're almost there.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: It was funny because I had such anxiety during the pandemic, like the beginning of it. If I were to get like a little tickle in my throat, I'm like, okay, hunker down, everybody. Stately now. I'm like, yeah, I'm just going to live life. I won't cough on people. I won't get near people, whatever, but I'm just going to live life. Let's get on this.
[00:01:52] Speaker B: It's crazy. I mean, back in the day, it was kind of like a badge of honor, too, right? If you were sick and you went to work, it was like, fuck, yeah. Look how powerful I am. I don't care about a cold or the flu, but now it's like, if you. I don't know. I don't know what to do anymore.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: No, exactly. I feel like my boss would be mad at me for coming in, let alone the opposite side of it.
It was only like four or five years ago, too. It wasn't even like decades ago. It was like four or five years ago. People were like, yeah, you came to work sick. This is great. And I used to manage bartenders, and bartenders would call in sick like, oh, I didn't feel good this morning. I'm like, you mean you're hungover? Like, you're hungover. Just say it. We work in the industry.
Exactly. And it's like 08:00 in the morning and they're calling in sick for like a 04:00 in the afternoon shift. I'm like, okay, so eat some food, drink some water, you'll be fine. Come on in.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: But we got plenty of time.
[00:02:48] Speaker A: Thank you so much for taking some time out. We're going to chat some books here.
How did you get into writing? How about that? Let's just start with that. What, forced? Not forced you, but what made you go into the avenue of writing in general?
[00:03:02] Speaker B: So when I was in undergrad, I was hoping and planning to be a career academic, and I was doing medieval studies, and the plan was take a year off after undergrad, go do some hiking, traveling, whatever, and then come back to it and kind of do the academic thing. And my last semester, I had one free elective, and it was a writing class that I ended up taking, and I took the class. It was fun, whatever. And I graduated. And then I heard from that professor again after I graduated, and he was like, I actually sent what you wrote to my agent and editor, and they both want full manuscripts. And I was like, I don't know anything about writing. So anyway, I wrote a book. It was terrible. I wrote it in like two months. I didn't know anything. And then life happened, and I ended up applying to grad school a few times, but in the course of writing that very bad book, I was like, holy shit, this is what I want to do with my life.
And then it was like a lot of years until I actually got a book done. And then, like, a book in the world.
[00:04:09] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. Now you have mayfly out there, your little babies out there. People are taking it and loving. I literally haven't heard bad things about it. But I also am in a certain group of people that obviously they'll like it.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: I'm not like, people are out there.
[00:04:27] Speaker A: I'm sure they are, but it's like one of those things where I'm like, yeah, everybody loves it, but I'm also part of book groups that have like, of course they're going to like it.
We're all crazy. And that's why. Right.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: We love it. There's no other way to be.
[00:04:40] Speaker A: Exactly. But yeah. So mayfly dropped this year. Like I said, overall, I think it's pretty overall, positive reviews on the book. And I did for our website, we did during horror week, we do a horror week, which actually I think is going to become horror month this year, which is kind of cool, but horror week on the website. I recently or in the past, I should say, talked to Stephen Graham Jones. I've talked to Daniel Krause, and I've talked to Adam Caesar. And so in the past, most of them, we talked their comics that they did, but we also touched on other things. I actually did a beer collaboration with Daniel Krause for my day job too. So for whale, that was you? Yeah.
[00:05:22] Speaker B: So cool.
[00:05:23] Speaker A: We had fun with. So I contacted them and was like, do you guys be willing or are you willing to put together a list of books that you would recommend? Like, a lot of people want to read your books, but what would you recommend to people? And both Adam Caesar and Stephen Graham Jones put mayfly on that list. So that to me was like, okay, now I need to read this book because I had it on my TBR, but it was like, I'll get to it at some point. I have so much stuff to read, and it forced me to. So I immediately started reading it. Absolutely loved it. And it only lost out to a close second for our top books of the year to whalefall.
[00:05:59] Speaker B: And you know what? Whalefall was 100% my top book of the year. So I know we're not here to talk about whalefall, but holy shit, it was so good.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: We can. I don't mind everybody.
[00:06:14] Speaker B: I told Daniel, too. I was like, this was like, everyone's Christmas present this year was your book.
[00:06:19] Speaker A: That was funny. I love how you say that, because my local comic book store owner said that his favorite book of the year was going to be everybody's Christmas present this year. He's like, yeah, what do you read? He's like, I mostly read Harry Potter novels. Okay, here's this book. And it had nothing to do with Harry Potter style novels. He's just like, I need you to read this book because this is the book you need to read. And Whalefall was, that was his novel for that because it can reach so many different people. I feel like it's a thriller, it's a horror, it's Sci-Fi life affirming.
[00:06:49] Speaker B: I mean, it's really like, I felt it was a very transformative experience reading.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: It, which is a different transformative experience than reading.
Mae, do you want to give anybody who hasn't heard of Mayfly or understand this, a little elevator pitch on what mayfly is?
[00:07:09] Speaker B: Yeah. So basically she is a theme park princess by day in Anaheim, California, and a certain ice princess you may or may not have heard of. And then by night she reads misanthropic literature. She's a barfly. She gets up to various low level no goods, but then her best friend's brother moves to town and sort of awakens something in her in a time when she's kind of grasping to keep life together anyway. And it gets bloody and it gets gross and it gets weirder.
I think that's pretty much the book. There's a lot of Halloween.
[00:07:58] Speaker A: Yes, there is. And that's good because that's horror. I mean, it fits in that category, right?
Definitely. It's funny how you mentioned the Anaheim, California, there's this happiest place on earth. Is that how you put it in the book? It's the happiest place on earth? Is that the.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: I think I said the happiest place in the world.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Because that is trademarked and it's unrelated. This is in my book. This is not talking about any real corporations.
[00:08:28] Speaker A: No, it isn't. Well, that was kind of funny. There's a bar, a Star wars bar, right, in California.
That is not a.
And it, it, they go by what's the name of.
They always, they do their podcast from there. It's on Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Scum and villainy.
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Yes, scum and villainy. You're right. Sorry.
[00:08:54] Speaker B: I love that.
Amazing.
[00:08:56] Speaker A: But it's not a Star wars bar. And it's like the same thing I felt I was trying to explain to people about the happiest place in the world was like, it's not what you think it is, but it is. But it isn't that. You could mention Snow White and you can mention Cinderella. Right, because they're a public domain character ip.
[00:09:11] Speaker B: Yeah. And Pinocchio, Pocahontas of like, those are know owned by any company. So it's pretty interesting.
[00:09:18] Speaker A: But if you read this book, you'll understand. If anybody knows what we're talking about, you also understand what character she portrays in this. I feel like people can get an idea of what you're referring to, but you're not referring to, which is fine, because I love that little poke.
If you had the ability and you had the rights to say the actual place, it would be less fun, in my opinion. I feel like this is kind of fun because it's almost like taking a shot at that actual company.
[00:09:46] Speaker B: In case anybody is listening for that company. It's not my intention, but I have to say I feel pretty neutral about. I've always felt kind of neutral about the park and the movies and everything. I don't have kids.
I like it. I just haven't thought too much about it. But I will say that particular ice princess movie, I do sort of unironically love it. And I talk about it a lot in the book. Because I think something really interesting happened in it. Which, if you read may fly, you.
[00:10:20] Speaker A: Could find out it's funny.
So I have a two and a half year old son. During the pandemic, we got Covid in the summer of August of 21.
August of 22, we got Covid. And the entire time, all we watched was cars. Like, all he wanted to watch was cars. The movie cars. Like, cars one, cars two, cars three. Just back to back to back to back. And I said to my wife, I was like, I'm so glad these are the movies that he decided to watch. Because every single time we watched, it was. We picked up something new. Some sort of innuendo or some sort of joke that made. It was like, yeah, I was actually riveted still. And she'd put on movie three, and I'd be like. She's like, why are you still watching this? I'm like, I don't know. There's something about it that really draws me in. I said to her, I'm glad it wasn't that movie. Because I don't know if I could have done over and over and over again. Because that would have driven me insane. I probably would have been like, no, we're not watching that. It's broken or something along those lines.
And then reading this book, it was kind of funny. It came full circle in that sense, but it's strange. It's weird. Has this been something that you have had to tell the specific mayfly story for a little while? Not maybe that you were going to write a book about it, but is this something that you've had? Like, I don't know. How did you come up with this?
[00:11:38] Speaker B: I guess it was percolating, I would say, only for it happened really fast. So I wrote two full books before Mayfly. And I could not sell them for my life. And I was kind of like, in a dark moment. I lost some people. I was, like, getting rejection letters every day for years, and I was just like, fuck it. And for some reason, it was Covid. It was, like, a weird time. And I just thought, someone needs to retell story of the eye from a female perspective. And I can't tell you where that came from, but I was like. I became obsessed with this idea. What does that look like?
Story of the eye is something that. It's like people used to talk about it all the time, and then they didn't. And I think we were in a moment, too, where I felt like people were trying to throw out a lot of literature that was written by straight white men. And I get it. But also, what if, instead of that, what if we just celebrate what's really amazing about it and also just know that it's like, those works are amazing. We don't need to take anything away from them. And maybe we just kind of get to join the party, too.
And I think that was kind of my hope, is to keep celebrating these works that I loved, but also just get to see myself in them a little bit. So, anyway, became obsessed. Maeve came to me very quickly, and I outlined the book in, like, two days and wrote the whole thing beginning to end with edits in, like, four or five months. And it was like one of those weird things that just flew. And I definitely had to draw the curtains and drink a lot of whiskey at OD hours of the day to write some of the scenes. But it was a blast. It was fun.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Some of the scenes are.
You have some merch on your website that explains some of the scenes that are in the book. And if anybody has some things on there, that's just kind of funny because I hybrid read a lot of times. I read audiobooks as well as the I'm in the car driving to and from work or if I'm a designer. So, like, a graphic designer. So a lot of times if I am designing a project, I'll throw something in, because if I'm doing artsy things, I can listen to a book more than I can. Music channel throws me off. It's weird. I don't know. But when I'm sitting at home, I'm reading the book and so on and so forth, and I happened into some of these scenes in my car and driving, and I was, like, looking around to making sure that I wasn't parked at a stoplight, and someone's like, what is this person listening to?
[00:14:14] Speaker B: It's a fun one.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Yes, exactly. And at the end, I was like, it made sense, too. It wasn't. I don't know. There was this James Tiny in the fourth as a comic book writer, he has a book out right now called Worldtree, and it's about a nudist is the main character is a nudist. And so a lot of the characters have risque poses and stuff like that. But it makes sense to me because obviously the character is nudist. And on other comic books, you see the comic books having, like, risque images on the front of the book. You're like, why? It's not about that. This is just so you can sell comics or whatever. This book, it's the same thing. I felt like it was necessary to show you who Maeve was, and it furthered the story so perfectly that I was like, oh, yeah, I could get this. I get behind this. This is great. But, yeah, it was. Reading the book at home, I feel like I still would be, like, reading the book at home, and I still probably would have been like, can read this? Can someone see what I'm doing here?
But no, it was definitely worth the journey, for sure.
It's strange. There's things that I wasn't getting in any other books that I was reading that year. And if you look at my top list, there's nothing that's even similarly close. Plus, I love the fact that it's a strong female lead character. That's, to me, a huge thing written by a female. That's the other part is that there are some great people out there writing strong female leads, but are written by men, which I always thought was weird sometimes.
Not that they can't. I'm just saying that coming from your perspective.
[00:15:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm very team like.
I hope everybody gets to write and everybody gets to be heard. And I also do appreciate if men are writing female main characters.
I always kind of remember those books because it's a beautiful thing to get to see yourself in, even super debauched, messed up kinds of literature, because it's fun.
[00:16:18] Speaker A: Yes, I agree, because I'm also rereading. My heart is a chainsaw right now.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Oh, so good.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Don't fear the reaper, because I'm getting ready to read the Angel Lake. I have the arc of that, getting ready for that, to read that. And so I'm rereading those, and it's like, Jay Daniels is also an amazing character, and you don't see him in pop culture that often anymore. That often. It's like, it feels like you need to pick up a book to actually get these characters. And I wish that we could see them more in tvs and movies and things like that as well, because, yes, the stereotypical person who potentially kills people, most of them are men, and that's why you see this white men character. But that doesn't mean we can't tell fictional stories that have the same thing, but with women, right?
[00:17:01] Speaker B: Yeah, absolutely. And it was really important to me. I talk about it a lot in the book, but what I was seeing was, like, I was finding these female characters who were doing monstrous things, but they all had this victim backstory.
They all had some traumatic event that was like something done to them, usually by a man.
I almost felt like there was this feeling that in our culture right now, we'll give women permission in fiction and in movies or whatever to be monstrous, but only if they were first kind of like made that way by a man or made that way by society or whatever. And it's like, well, I don't know. Patrick Bateman had a pretty good know, and he just was Bateman. Like, why can't we have a female character like that? And why is that so hard for us to like? There was so much pushback even in getting this book published. Like, won't you give a little backstory? Like, won't you give a little bit? And it's like, why does it matter?
So I don't know. It's pretty interesting.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: It is. And I love your. Isn't that the quote from Grady Hendrix in the front? Apocalyptic, Anaheim psycho, which is kind of funny. The psycho connection is awesome. Yeah, I like this thing. It's in the quotes on there. It's like there's some heavy hitters on here, including Tori Amos.
[00:18:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I got lucky with blurbs.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: Yes, it's pretty cool. And you obviously had this quote from Daniel Krause in the back, was a deliriously indecent feminist slasher. This is co author of the Living Dead, which would probably have said whalefall.
[00:18:38] Speaker B: If this book came out, for sure would have.
[00:18:40] Speaker A: Yeah, but no, it's a wonderful book. It's strange. Like I said, it has that strangeness to it. It's also not like there's like this weird thing where when I read a book and all of a sudden I know there's a supernatural twist in it. Like supernatural, totally unbelievable. This is not even based on earth. This is weirdly to say, it's grounded, which is like, I like books and I'm reading it. I like to escape and read fiction, but I also like fiction that could possibly be real. It adds that further horror element to me, if that makes any sense.
[00:19:14] Speaker B: I'm so glad.
I think writing a slasher, it's a very singular experience. So I have more books in my contract and we're kind of keeping it rolling with writing. And I don't have other slasher stories, but we have now come to the place where it looks like I'll probably return to Maeve and her world and I think she'll be kind of my one slasher in my canon. I think we'll see.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: That makes mean. Yeah, if you have more to tell and there's more to tell in the story. Like, you know, we just mentioned my heart is a know. Jay Daniels is a ever telling story in a sense, in that and then other books that are slashers. I feel like slashers deserve the sequel, if that makes any sense. Like anything is a slasher anyway is like telling that sequel is part of the story anyway.
[00:20:07] Speaker B: I mean, think about Freddie, Jason. Like we, we have this really rich history of slashers continuing on and this sort of like the boogeyman never dies kind of feeling to it and it's so epic. And I also love that Stephen Graham Jones did that because I think I'm not know, Sci-Fi and fantasy, they get these five book series all the time. Comic books of know go on for really long time. And I think horror for a while we've been seeing a lot of standalones, the occasional, but like I don't know, Stephen Graham Jones giving us a trilogy here makes me feel like we might be moving into an interesting moment of horror series, which I love to like.
[00:20:54] Speaker A: I don't know, I feel like we're in the world, know, trying to intake so much of Marvel Cinematic Universe, having all those superhero movies, having tv shows that spin off into other tv shows and things like that. We want this connected world in a sense. And so having more, you also feel like to me you'd almost be doing a disservice to the slasher genre by only doing one story with me. But again, that's down the road. You have other things that are coming out before anything even gets into that part. But on your website, your bio, I'm just going to go on your bio. It's probably not completely recent, but you talk about telling stories about places and things like that. This had that in it. But I also cared so much for our characters in your book that I didn't think that I would. And I think that is part of your character building and it's wonderful. I'll tell you that much.
[00:21:48] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. That's what I hope is like, I love setting, and I think we read for human relationships, right. And it's kind of also fun when. And I'm so happy that for you, it worked, and then maybe I was able to pull it off. But I think it's great to be able to connect with a character that maybe this person in real life you might be like, I fucking hate you. I don't want to connect with you. But it's fiction.
It's on the page.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Her name is the name of the book.
So you want to care for the character, and you don't want to immediately knowing this person isn't the greatest person in the world, that you wouldn't want to immediately have everybody hate that person because there is the ability to follow and love a book or a villain in a book that you.
It's possible, but in the same sense, I felt like you still had this moment of, like, no, I side with Maeve. That makes sense to me. I wouldn't handle it that way, but that makes sense to know. But that's also what makes Maeve the person that Maeve is and makes me who I am. Even though obviously, Maeve is not real unless it's based on a true story. I don't.
[00:22:58] Speaker B: I mean, I can't say. But it was really important to me that because there are characters who are really nihilistic. They're bored with life. They're over everything. And I didn't want her to be that. I wanted her to have things she loved, things she cared about, things that were actually vital to her in the world. And I think that is where we find connection with people.
When you meet somebody who loves something, especially, like, looking at your room behind you, it's like, when you're part of a fandom, right, or whatever it is, that's so much of how we form connection. So that was a lot of fun, I'm sure.
[00:23:39] Speaker A: I'm guessing you enjoyed writing the book. You said you kind of ripped through making it basically, in a sense, like, you were just on it.
What was the experience like when it finally hit shelves and people, the reviews and things like that were rolling in? Was it a positive experience? Was it a. Oh, my God, I got to start the next one now. There's pressure on me.
[00:23:55] Speaker B: Or, like, it was amazing. So, like, I'll say my book sold two years exactly before it came out. So it was an incredibly long ramp up period. Like, weirdly long and that was because of COVID backup and all kinds of factors. And by the time I've been working on two other books or three other books, and one of them now is kind of like we're finishing up, but I think I had a lot of time to process and I was really lucky. And so the Goodreads reviews start coming in early and the Netgalley reviews, and at first I was obsessing over the negative ones and not even looking at the positive ones, but it kind of gets to a point where when I got really emotional was just walking into a bookstore and seeing it on the shelf. And I think for writers where most of us are readers and when you grow up a reader, those bookshelves saved my life as a kid and were my life. And it was the most magical place in the world. Going to the bookstore and just knowing you're going to enter a new realm and learn so much. And I think that to me, even now, events and all that stuff, I like that stuff and I like meeting people, but really just knowing that the book is on shelves is pretty fucking magical and makes it all feel so worth it. Seven years from trying to start writing to getting a book out, which is actually even fast for this industry, which is insane.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: And like I said, I think that the majority, I mean, my wife and I talk about books that we read. We're like, okay, anything that we pick up on a shelf at a store and we go on Goodreads and it's over a 3.75 or whatever, we're like, okay, we're definitely going to, if it looks good, we want it, we're going to read it.
And that to me is like, that's the line to us, if that makes any sense. Obviously we've read things below that, but that's what we decide our line is. And to think that there's 7000 people right now that have rated your book on Goodreads. But that's just the people who use Goodreads and those are the people who actually review things.
It's an insane thing. I can even think about how much that would feel good that that many people are reading your book, whether they like it or not. It's pretty cool.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: It's pretty amazing.
I think my attitude toward writing the whole time has been like, I feel like I'm always going to have more to learn and I'm just so freaking lucky to be here. You know what I mean? I'm so stoked to be part of this that, and there are a lot of reasons for this. But writers can get touchy about things, or even with the publishing if the COVID isn't what you want. Or my cover is exactly what?
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Phenomenal. Yeah.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: This is amazing cover, but if anything kind of isn't exactly what you want. But I don't know, I just feel like, holy shit. People get to read my.
Oh, by the way, so that she's a painter who did my cover.
Yeah. And then there's an artist at the publisher too, who kind of made it look like a book. But the painter, Carly Mazer, she's actually doing my next book cover too, which I'm so excited.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: Paper, this is hardcovers out right now, but it's the paperbacks coming out in July is the same cover, just paperback version of the COVID You know what I think?
[00:27:11] Speaker B: But we actually haven't. I have not been told yet, but I would imagine because we're all pretty in love with this cover.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Well, it's kind of funny. Sometimes I see that. I don't understand it sometimes. Also, the book publishing world is completely different, honestly, than the comic book publishing world in many facets. But one of them is like, this is the COVID period, no matter where it's published and how it's published. Whereas in books it seems like. It's weird. I feel like sometimes the UK version, it's like far superior than what we're getting in the US. And then the opposite goes. And then they go to paperback. You're like, the hardcover was so beautiful. Why'd you go to this cover on the paperback? But a lot of times they both look good. It's just why they decided to go a certain way, I think it's a lot factors this, to me, might sell your book. You're not supposed to judge a book by its cover. But if I saw this on the shelf, I picked this up before I knew about it for sure.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: And we're getting more covers this year too, because it's coming out in more countries. So that'll be interesting.
I'm looking forward to see what everybody. The french one is completely different. Completely. And that's coming out in be.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: You know, how many languages is going to be printed in? Do you know yet? So far.
[00:28:18] Speaker B: So far we've got, I think it's France, Germany and Italy.
[00:28:24] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: And that's. That's it. So crazy, though.
Yeah. And now we're hoping the next book know, I mean, it's just like, it keeps rolling. It's fun.
[00:28:35] Speaker A: Exactly. It's fun. And you said next side. This book has strangest. It's weirdness to me. I said, it's coming from someone who's reading it, someone's writing it. You're probably like, it's just normal. This is what I wanted to write. But now sets up the center stage for american rapture is coming in October of this year. It's so weird because it takes, like I mentioned, the comic book market versus the book market.
You take about a year to almost promote a book in the book market, and you're still kind of promoting mayfly in the sense that you're also trying to get people to preorder your next book, which is like a weird thing because you haven't even lived in this book for a year or just around a year. When did it come out again?
[00:29:18] Speaker B: July, June 6. But I'll tell you what, because we sold it so much earlier than it came out, I'm like, everybody, please read mave.
I'm ready to keep it moving and kind of.
And then I'll return to Maeve after we get a little break.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Well, you get this preorder. Let's talk a second about american rapture. But then you'll get this ability to also repromote Maeve again as the paperback comes out, which is pretty cool. And some people are big paperback fans. Some people are on a budget. So that makes sense, too.
[00:29:51] Speaker B: I love a paper. I actually think it feels better to hold a paperback, personally.
[00:29:56] Speaker A: To hold a paperback? Yes. The longevity of it on a shelf. Like, if you're going to collect something, it's something about hardcover does that. But yes, I am just a big point of, if you buy the first one of a series in the hardcover, you must buy the second.
[00:30:06] Speaker B: Oh, you have to. Yeah.
[00:30:08] Speaker A: I have Nina's book, the made in soft cover for the first book in hardcover. It's. They're like inches separate in size. Not even like, they're like, closed. It's like literally like the size of a book is so small compared to. But that's just me being some sort of OCD thing about having to make sure that things are lining up on the shelf. But that doesn't read any different people. The words are also the same on the inside.
[00:30:33] Speaker B: No, but I understand everybody does their own dance with books. I like to crack a spine. Personally, I love a spine crack. So you can't really do it with a hardcover. It's harder.
[00:30:47] Speaker A: No. And if you spine crack on an iPad, it's probably not a good thing. Right? If you reading digitally, because it is available digitally, too. And I can understand that, like, I mentioned hybrid. There is a cool way of doing that, too. I've read physical copies at the. Well, time. I'm reading an e copy as well.
[00:31:03] Speaker B: And it's like $2 sometimes.
[00:31:06] Speaker A: Look for those deals. But yeah, if you're in a more of a budget. Mayfly comes back out again in paperback this summer, which is cool. I'm looking forward to that. But then you have, right after that couple of months later in October, you have american rapture coming out. And you just announced this a couple of weeks ago, which is pretty cool. Exciting for it to come out. It's a different book, obviously. What's it about? Tell us a little bit about.
[00:31:30] Speaker B: And by the way, this is only my second time talking about it with somebody, so this is very fun for me. So thank you.
It's basically a catholic teenager, very sheltered in Wisconsin, comes into her beginnings of sexuality at the same time that the world explodes with this or not that just America explodes with this pandemic that makes people kind of feral with lust. So it sexually propagates. The virus does. So she has to get across the state of Wisconsin to reach her family in this really effectively. What is like Dante's second circle of hell opened up in the midwest.
So it's lots of roadside America, it's lots of dairy, it's lots of neon. It's lots like all the kind of things that. All the settings I like. But it's a lot about catholic guilt, shame, sex, lust. All the things.
[00:32:37] Speaker A: All the things to sell a.
That's. That's awesome. The fun thing, I will say, we mentioned about continuing Maeve's story at some point. I do love that this is. I love how the description. You put it out there, put it out right now. It says from CJ lead the deviant mind behind Maevefly. And it was like, it's in your wheelhouse to tell this story, but it's also different than mayfly in the sense that it's not going to be the exact same book, just a different main character. Some people who have this ability to write a book every year, it's just basically retelling of the same story over and over again. This is obviously going to be a different story, which is what I'm. Something I'm looking forward to because I enjoyed your writing and I want to hear a different story, which is pretty cool.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Our hope was to kind of hit some of the same themes, hit some of the same, have a lot of that sort of neon bar americana carry through, but also give a really different main character. And actually the book I'm working on now has a male main character. So it's like, I do kind of want to keep it rolling. But by the way, I did not choose to call myself deviant there. That was a surprise to me and I was thrilled. I was like, thank you, whoever wrote this, I think it was my editor.
[00:33:52] Speaker A: Yeah, probably if you read Mayfly, people are going to understand it. And then if you get to american maps, people are going to understand it sets CJ apart from everybody else out there right now it's October 15 that drops, which is pretty cool. You can preorder it now at most places, including Amazon, but also check out your local bookstores and things like that. But I've always said, I've said a million times on these podcasts, it's like, try your local bookstore. But if you end up just, it's the easiest and best thing for you to do is buy it on Amazon. Just do that. Because no matter what, it's a book sale. And that's the biggest thing in my mind. I'm like, yes, local is great. If you can do local, try to do local. But in the end, don't not buy the book because you want to buy it on Amazon. Still buy the book.
[00:34:36] Speaker B: And also I think, sorry, that was a hotel phone, just, we're checking out soon. But bookshop.org has also been like a great resource for that because then you get to place the order and not really think about it. But it comes from some local bookstore. But yeah, I appreciate that. Thank you. Please. Yeah, if you guys can afford to buy a book, it does help writers out a lot.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: And also we've been big proponents of, because we listen to audiobooks as well. Here is Libro FM, if anybody doesn't know about that too. When the book does become available in audiobook format, Mayfly is available in audiobook format, is to buy it on there because that also supports, they send a kickback to a local bookstore that you choose when you sign up for that too. So it's like buying the book from the bookstore but in audiobook format because obviously no one sells audio cds anymore, do they? Is that even a thing anymore?
[00:35:30] Speaker B: I don't know. And I will say my next book has a lot to do with libraries too. And I'm just stoked if anybody reads this.
[00:35:38] Speaker A: Libraries, libraries are great for that.
Not that this is going to be in any school library, but just maybe.
[00:35:45] Speaker B: You'Re, you never know.
I hope I get banned somewhere.
[00:35:53] Speaker A: That's the goal, right?
[00:35:56] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:35:57] Speaker A: Banned for not doing anything wrong, just writing a great novel. There you go.
[00:36:01] Speaker B: In Florida or Texas or something.
[00:36:04] Speaker A: That's easy.
I think RL Stein is probably banned in Texas.
The book, as I said, october 15, you can get mave fly and hardcover right now. And I said paperback this July as well, so you can preorder that as well or buy the hardcover right now. You're a Star Trek fan?
[00:36:25] Speaker B: Big time.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: Would you ever want to write Star Trek comics?
[00:36:29] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:36:32] Speaker A: This is a random question. This is just like, we're closing out with this question here. We're big comic book fans, obviously, here.
And we've had Star Trek editors for the Star Trek line over at IDW on the podcast. And so I just thought I'd say, hey, that's a cool thing. Comics writers, people crossover. I just mentioned three people who have written comics and novels.
Is that something would ever interest you? I mean, just writing comics in general? Or is this just. You don't have to say yes, by the way.
[00:36:58] Speaker B: You can say, yeah, no, I worked at a comic book store, actually. That was my last job before doing this full time. I love comics, actually. I really do. And there are, of course, like, novelizations of Star Trek too, like its whole own industry.
I think the thing is, my heart's pounding even like you asking that question, because I'm such a big fan and it's such like a comfort world for me. I almost wonder. I think it would be the biggest dream and honor. And at the same time, I wonder if maybe I shouldn't involve myself in that way. Maybe I should just be able to be the biggest fan of this for my whole life and just kind of have that remain so pure because I wouldn't want to fuck it up. I can't fuck up people.
What if I did? That's egregious.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: I know firsthand by me. But I've talked to people who are like, it's such a difficult thing. Heather Antos is one of the editors of IDW. She's been on the podcast, and she's talking about the idea, the lore behind these things. And if you change the smallest thing or you screw up on the smallest thing, they're villainized for the rest of their lives because they messed with their Star Trek. And it's like, yeah, I can understand that. Peeling back that curtain and going in behind the scenes of some of this stuff, too, also can be fun. But in the same sense comes with pressure. Telling your own stories, like maybe fly or American Rapture, it's probably the I say safer, but the safer of the two bets. But yes, basically what you're saying is if someone had tapped their shoulder on hey, can you do a one shot? You'd think about it?
[00:38:29] Speaker B: I'd think about it for sure. And it'd be such an honor.
[00:38:32] Speaker A: You're not gearing into it, looking forward to it, trying to get into happens.
[00:38:37] Speaker B: I'd say if anything, I mean I live in LA and I'm not an actor, but if there was ever like a day player part where I don't have to do too much and can be in some elaborate alien makeup or something, that'd be more like how I'd want to step in a Star Trek world. Because then it's like I'm not really on the hook. I get to participate, I get to probably cry all day from joy.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: That's pretty funny.
Yeah, I can understand that. I can completely see that. And it'd be fun to, if they ever do maybe a Maeve fly Star Trek crossover, I don't know.
[00:39:14] Speaker B: Hey look, I mean I could see Maeve and Kirk having a gale time.
[00:39:20] Speaker A: That's exactly right. Or how about this? Maeve cosplays as a character from Star Trek and walks around.
[00:39:28] Speaker B: That'd be amazing. Honestly, I could see her vibing with the Klingon world pretty hard.
[00:39:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I had to throw that out there because I knew you're a Star Trek fan and we would be big fans of a Star Trek comic book written by you. But keep to the book for now. Yeah, not like you're not busy enough as it is.
[00:39:49] Speaker B: Well, I would say never say never because I said a hard no to a mave sequel and now here we are. So never say never.
Things change.
[00:39:59] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. Well we appreciate you taking time out of your busy schedule to come on and talk Maevefly, American Rapture, Star Trek and everything in between. Yeah. So best of luck. We're so excited to read american rapture and we'll be back in touch at some point, probably to come on and talk about that at some point in the future.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: Yeah, I hope we get to chat more. And if nothing else, I just want to stare at your beautiful comic book and funko collection behind the fun thing.
[00:40:26] Speaker A: There's what, 12345 shelves up there and they're all signed by guests of the podcast. So that was my goal. So either I've owned them before or they have sent them to me afterwards. This line here is all signed vhs from people that were in them.
I don't know. We got Friday the 13th never ending story, Bible.
But, yeah, it's fun. I work closely with the people who do the convention in Maine.
[00:40:58] Speaker B: Oh, nice.
[00:40:59] Speaker A: Comic book convention. So a lot of times I do a lot of their graphics, and they give me autograph stuff for free, so I in trade because I don't want to charge them. But, yeah, it's been a long collection, but it's a fun thing. All my books are in my bedroom library area. There's some signed ones in there, but I got to bring some of those in here. I had them. I've got whalefall coffee.
[00:41:20] Speaker B: Oh, there you go.
[00:41:21] Speaker A: That's whalefall coffee. And then whalefall beer.
[00:41:28] Speaker B: My boyfriend and I saw the whalefall beer existed, and we got online to see if we could get some. We thought that was so cool.
[00:41:35] Speaker A: It was so limited, and my brewery only sells it in New England, and so it's hard. Some states you can ship to, some states you can't. So we were just like. We secretly shipped some to Daniel.
He sent him a case, but other than that, it's one of the fastest selling beers we've had. And I'm hoping to do something in the future with Daniel or whoever. Be kind of fun to do in the future, but, yeah, I appreciate it. Thank you so much for coming on, and safe travels, and safe, whatever you're doing, but come back and talk american rapture or just shoot the shit. Doesn't matter to me.
[00:42:13] Speaker B: Thank you. I would love that. And thank you so much for plugging both books and reading Maeve and just being the coolest.
[00:42:21] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
